With the recent development of radiant energy cooking ovens, such as those employing microwave or infrared radiation, it has become apparent that they would be useful particularly in mass feeding environments such as in schools, hospitals, or other institutional environments where reduced cooking time is desirable. Accordingly, it is believed that attempts have been made to develop conveyorized automated ovens which were intended to heat or cook large quantities of food for use in such institutional feeding. One of the primary limitations of such ovens has been that because different types of foods require different degrees of microwave or infrared energy in order to be heated or cooked properly, only one type of food could be passed through the automated oven at a time. Thus, in order to prepare a complete meal having a number of different courses, it would be necessary to employ a number of such ovens, each adapted to heat the individual foods appropriately. The use of such multiple ovens is awkward and is not believed to have achieved any significant degree of success. Attempts to convey an entire meal through a single oven have been unsatisfactory. Different foods generally require different amounts of heat and are intended to be served at diifferent temperatures. As a result, when a meal having varied foods was processed simultaneously only one or perhaps two of the foods would be at the optimal temperature. It is among the primary objects of the invention to provide an improved conveyorized microwave or infrared oven which avoids the foregoing difficulties.
In the following description of the invention, the term "heat conditioning" will be used to define generally the application of heat to the extent necessary for the particular food product being heated. In this regard, it may be noted that the invention contemplates that the food components usually will be precooked and frozen for storage until use. Such food preferably are slightly undercooked before freezing so that when heated to the proper serving temperature the added heat may complete the cooking process. In some instances, however, the food may not have been frozen and would require a different degree of heating in order to bring it to the proper condition and serving temperature. The term heat conditioning as employed herein is intended to embrace these or other techniques for heating the food to the proper extent which, in turn, depends on the type of food and its condition before insertion into the radiant energy oven.